MP calls on government to protect struggling independent booksellers
Alison Flood writing in guardian.co.uk, Thursday 22 January 2009

An MP has called on the government to provide more support to small businesses after learning that an award-winning and much-loved local bookshop has been forced to close.

Kaydee Bookshop in Clitheroe, Lancashire, which was named independent bookseller of the year in 1992, has announced that it will be closing down at the end of this month after 60 years in business, with the loss of nine jobs. Its demise follows the news earlier this month that the UK's only specialist crime bookshop,

Murder One in London, will also close at the end of January, and adds to official figures that show the number of independent bookshops in the UK has plummeted by 22% in the last 10 years, with just 1,390 still open according to the most recent count last summer, compared to 1,774 in 1999.

Reasd the complete story at The Guardian online.

AN INVITATION FROM UNITY BOOKS WELLINGTON

Summer Books Alive at The Jimmy

A new style of literary event being launched on 3rd February will offer the opportunity to hear the voices of NZ literature in a relaxed café atmosphere.

Summer Books Alive at The Jimmy features six writers reading for six minutes from outstanding books published in 2008.
The six writers in the inaugural event are:

Kate De Goldi – The 10pm Question
Elizabeth Knox – The Love School: Personal Essays
Bridget van der Zijpp – Misconduct
Bernard Beckett – Acid Song
Jenny Bornholdt – The Rocky Shore
Duncan Sarkies – Two Little Boys

This free summer event will be hosted by Jo Randerson at 6pm on Tuesday 3rd February at The Jimmy Bar and Café at the St James Theatre.

St James Marketing Manager Lindsay O’Reilly said: “Good writing is the well-spring for good theatre so we see these writer’s sound-bites as an excellent dimension and a positive marriage between the two, and one that could become a regular fixture on the St James calendar.”

Noel Murphy from the NZ Book Council suggested that six minutes was exactly the right amount of time to get an introductory taste of a book and a writer’s style. He said the event offered the opportunity to hear the writing voice of a range of Wellington-based writers: “The talent in this line-up just goes to show the wealth of NZ literature that emerges from Wellington. A city that has a healthy writing tradition is obviously a city that has some strength in its convictions.”

TIME & PLACE:

6pm, Tuesday 3rd Feb,

The Jimmy Café and Bar,

St James Theatre, Courtenay Place,

Wellington, New Zealand

For more information contact:

Nic Marshall
Email: nicinc@xtra.co.nz
Phone: 021 256 4737

COPYRIGHT RESTRICTION ON THE PARALLEL IMPORTATION OF BOOKS

This is currently a major issue in Australia.

For those readers of my blog who have a special interest in the subject go to this website where you can read submissions on the subject, many from authors - think Kate Grenville, Thomas Keneally (especially worth reading), Judy Nunn, Tim Flannery - as well as others including various publishers and book distributors as well as the NZ Society of Authors.

FROST / NIXON
David Frost with Bob Zelnick
Pan Books $27.99

Following the resounding success of the eponymous West End and Broadway play, FROST/ NIXON, tells the extraordinary story of how David Frost pursued and landed the biggest fish of his career and produced one of the most dramatic pieces of television ever broadcast.

It was published in 2007 and of course since then the movie has arrived and is currently showing around the world. Pan Books have wisely reissued the book to coincide with the new wave of interest in the earlier events.

In his author’s note David Frost tells us that this book is a sequel to his 1977 title on the Nixon interviews, I Gave Them A Sword. He explains he has added the story of Nixon in retirement and an assessment of the Nixon presidency as seen from the vantage point of 2007 rather than 1977.
He has also included, for the first time, five transcripts from discrete parts of the interviews – not only Watergate and Vietnam, but also the Huston Plan, Henry Kissinger and Chile.

Nixon seems to be attracting a lot of attention just now. I notice in the issue of the NZ Listener out this week David Cohen has two pages reviewing:
Nixonland: The Rise of a President and the Fracturing of America
Rick Peristein (Scribner NZ$49.99)
and
The Invincible Quest:The Life of Richard Milhous Nixon
Conrad Black (Quercus NZ$69.99).

Elizabeth Alexander's praise poem was way too prosy

Carol Rumens writing on her blog in guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 21 January 2009

The African praise song traditionally celebrates the life of an individual, giving their name, genealogy, totem animal, job, personal attributes, etc in a rhythmical, incantatory, call-and-response style. To use this ancient form was an idea with exciting potential, but, as it turned out, the title of Elizabeth Alexander's inauguration poem was more inspired than the poem itself. Readers looking at the transcript might be asking if it's a poem at all. With its long prosy lines, this praise song is closer to a speech than a song.

Read Rumen's full comments, and watch a video of Alexander delivering the poem here.

How the web is undermining reading
From Plato to Guitar Hero, we have always been wary of change - but the internet poses a serious threat to society's ability to read

Naomi Alderman writing in guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 January 2009

Rembrandt's Aristotle with the Bust of Homer. Photograph: Corbis

For as long as humans have been developing new technology, we've been worrying that our inventions will cause our brains to decay.
Even the development of writing was seen as a threat to the memory skills that enabled ancient poems to be passed from teller to teller - many scholars believe Homer's epics weren't written by a single man, but were the product of a long tradition of oral poetry. Arguably civilisation gained something better in exchange, but there were still those who bemoaned the loss of the memory skills of the oral culture; in Mary Renault's novel The Praise Singer, master-memoriser Simonides worries that his student's memory will become hazy because he is writing things down.

There are some signs that we may be approaching a similar cultural moment, although perhaps with fewer reasons to be cheerful. Reading has been on the decline for the past half-century - largely, it seems, because television has replaced reading in our leisure time. I love television: even with the slew of boring reality shows currently broadcast, TV still offers some very enriching cultural experiences.

But the loss of reading - that is, not purely literacy but reading for pleasure - could have wide cultural implications. Reading brings with it a host of other skills and benefits, the loss of which would leave our society poorer, including the ability to absorb information quickly, to think through complex problems or to compare points of view.

Read the full piece at The Guardian online.

The Horn Book Acquired by Parent of Junior Library Guild

Columbus, OH — January 21, 2009 — Media Source, Inc., has announced its acquisition of the Boston-based children’s literature company, The Horn Book, Inc., publisher of The Horn Book Magazine and The Horn Book Guide.

Media Source, based in Dublin, Ohio, is best known for its ownership of Junior Library Guild, a review and selection service for children’s and young adult books that has served the library market since 1929.

Horn Book will continue to run its editorial operations from its offices in Boston, Massachusetts, where it has been in operation since 1924. The Boston Globe–Horn Book Awards will remain in Boston as well.
According to Horn Book’s Editor-in-Chief Roger Sutton, “The expertise, enthusiasm, and resources that Media Source brings to the table will allow us to enlarge our audience while maintaining our independent viewpoint and high standards.” Regarding any changes to the magazine, Sutton says, “Our print and digital publications will be refreshed, redesigned, and rethought — but always in line with founder Bertha Mahony Miller’s directive to ‘blow the horn for fine books for boys and girls.’”

Randy Asmo, President and CEO of Media Source, underscores Sutton’s words: “Horn Book and Junior Library Guild will maintain separate editorial offices and operations. We place a very high value on the history, reputation, and status Horn Book’s publications have in the world of children’s literature. Our goal is to build upon those strengths to ensure that The Horn Book remains a valued and respected voice well into the future.”

About Junior Library Guild

Established in 1929, Junior Library Guild (JLG) independently reviews and selects children’s and young adult literature prior to publication in order to provide the school and public library markets with the best new hardcover trade books. JLG’s collection development service helps thousands of libraries across the country to acquire the very best new-release hardcover books.

About The Horn Book

The Boston-based Horn Book was founded in 1924 to herald the best in children’s literature. The Horn Book Magazine, published six times each year, features commentary, articles, and book reviews of selected new children’s and young adult titles. Its sister publication, The Horn Book Guide, includes more than 2,000 reviews in each semi-annual issue. The Horn Book Guide Online provides subscription access to a searchable database of more than 70,000 reviews of children’s books.

INAUGURAL POEM
Published: January 20, 2009 in The New York Times



The following is a transcript of the inaugural poem recited by Elizabeth Alexander, as provided by CQ transcriptions.


Praise song for the day.
Each day we go about our business, walking past each other, catching each others' eyes or not, about to speak or speaking. All about us is noise. All about us is noise and bramble, thorn and din, each one of our ancestors on our tongues. Someone is stitching up a hem, darning a hole in a uniform, patching a tire, repairing the things in need of repair.

Someone is trying to make music somewhere with a pair of wooden spoons on an oil drum with cello, boom box, harmonica, voice.

A woman and her son wait for the bus.

A farmer considers the changing sky; A teacher says, "Take out your pencils. Begin."

We encounter each other in words, words spiny or smooth, whispered or declaimed; words to consider, reconsider.

We cross dirt roads and highways that mark the will of someone and then others who said, "I need to see what's on the other side; I know there's something better down the road."

We need to find a place where we are safe; We walk into that which we cannot yet see.

Say it plain, that many have died for this day. Sing the names of the dead who brought us here, who laid the train tracks, raised the bridges, picked the cotton and the lettuce, built brick by brick the glittering edifices they would then keep clean and work inside of.

Praise song for struggle; praise song for the day. Praise song for every hand-lettered sign; The figuring it out at kitchen tables.

Some live by "Love thy neighbor as thy self."

Others by first do no harm, or take no more than you need.

What if the mightiest word is love, love beyond marital, filial, national. Love that casts a widening pool of light. Love with no need to preempt grievance.

In today's sharp sparkle, this winter air, anything can be made, any sentence begun.

On the brink, on the brim, on the cusp -- praise song for walking forward in that light.

Gerard Reid has left a new comment on your post

" iPods and iPhones: death for the book trade .":

I'm sure we will see what I call "the relative displacement of media" phenomenon.Since the beginning of time, the invention of each new medium has never destroyed the preceding media, it has simply displaced them.

Even today we chisel words in stone on monuments and attend public addresses by academics, politicians, etc., make our own music at home, attend live performances, paint, sculpt and so on. So media do not disappear.

However displacement is not absolute. It is relative to all other media. Just look at what TV did to the cinema. At first it knocked the cinema into steep decline. Then the cinema industry remade itself, found new production values and marketing techniques and is today stronger than ever. Cinema in its time had done the same to live theatre and recorded music to home-made musical entertainment.

And yet each displaced medium has bounced back, stronger than ever.

If for no other reason than the lesson of history, we can confidently say that the traditional print book will:-

-be displaced by eBooks

-suffer some decline in print form

- after a time redevelop its format and values

- piggyback on the new medium to reassert itself

- emerge stronger than ever

iPods and iPhones: death for the book trade
By Gareth Powell

The Apple iPod Touch and the Apple iPhone will all but destroy traditional publishing. It is already very sick. The days of the major sales when you would print a million of a book and know you would be OK are now well over.

The death of book publishing in the middle levels may not happen tomorrow. The relatives have been informed. It is awaiting the last rites. Probably within ten years.

This is written in the first person for there is no other way to write it. John Owen is one of the savviest publishers I know. He owned Weldon Owen — he bought out the Australian Kevin Weldon — and from his headquarters in San Francisco and Sydney built up, in partnership with his wife, Dawn, a major publishing empire. Which he recently sold.
He is visiting Sydney and last night took me to dinner.

The conversation was all about the death of publishing in the middle levels. It survives in other areas but the glory days are well past.
The easiest way to see why and how it is happening is iPod the Missing Manual by J.D. Biersdorfer and David Pogue.
At the bookseller Dymocks in Sydney it is US$27 although in the United States it is US$20. It is 278 pages long, has a laminated cover, is professionally laid out. Not great value for money but OK.
It was also available as a download on the official Apple site as:
iPhone: The Missing Manual, 2nd. Ed.Thoroughly updated and teeming with high-quality color graphics, humor, tips, tricks, and surprises, iPhone: The Missing Manual quickly teaches you how to set up, accessorize, and troubleshoot your iPhone 3G.
Price was US$3.50 on special.

Read his full sobering report at BLORGE.

My thanks to Perry Lennon of Dymocks Australia for bringing Gareth Powell's story to my attention along with another story from Publishers Weekly offering a similar scenario in the cookbook world.

THE BOOK IS THE BEST TRANPORTATION DEVICE...........

This from The Boston Globe.

Part of an interview with Peter H. Reynolds, (pic-Boston Globe), a man who wears many hats. He is a children's author and illustrator. He helps run a family-owned bookstore in Dedham called the Blue Bunny. He is the cofounder, with his twin brother, Paul, of FableVision, an educational media firm that creates websites, games, animation, software, and books for children.

Q. There is a lot of concern about children losing the habit of reading books. Do you share that concern?

A. Well, I own a bookstore, and when kids come into contact with books, I see them loving them. But I think we have to be a little more passionate about getting books to children - which includes putting books in our own hands. I see a lot of parents not reading, but instead spending hours and hours on computers. It sends a strong message to kids that books are not important. The book is still the best transportation device to take us through time, to new worlds and ideas. Once you've tasted it, it's hard to give it up. I think we just need to give kids more opportunities to taste it.

Read the full story at the Boston Globe online.

OBAMARAMA

THE BREAKTHROUGH
Politics and Race in the Age of Obama
By Gwen Ifill
277 pages. Doubleday. $24.95.

WHAT OBAMA MEANS...
For Our Culture, Our Politics, Our Future
By Jabari Asim
223 pages. William Morrow. $21.99.

The man is rapidly becoming an industry! More books...read the reviews at The New York Times online.

Forthcoming debut novel gets a cameo plug in Patricia Cornwell's latest mystery
Alison Flood writing in guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 20 January 2009

A clue to the author's tastes ... Patricia Cornwell. Photograph: Jessica Kovaks/Sygma/Corbis

She's a hotshot forensic pathologist who has solved a host of grisly crimes, but it has emerged that Kay Scarpetta also has another skill up her sleeve: time travel.
The latest novel in Patricia Cornwell's bestselling crime series sees its sharp-dressing blonde heroine spotting a yet-to-be published debut novel as she arrives at a crime scene and meets the police officer in charge. "He collected his jacket from the back of a folding chair, and a copy of Philipp Meyer's American Rust from the oak floor under it," Cornwell writes.

But American Rust - a multi-perspective story of disaffected youth in a Pennsylvanian steel town that commanded a six-figure advance for its author - is not published until next month in the US and April in the UK. Cornwell told the New York Times that the police officer was initially going to be reading James L Swanson's Manhunt, but once she read an early copy of American Rust she felt she had to include it in her book, despite the advice of her editor. "I look through his book even now because I admire his writing so much," she said. "The same way, frankly, that I do Hemingway."

Read the rest of Flood's story at the Guardian online.

CANADIAN BOOK FAIR UNDER THREAT

More publishers sitting out BookExpo
January 20, 2009 By Scott MacDonald Writing in Quill & Quire

Reed Exhibitions hasn’t called the whole show off yet, but it’s looking increasingly unlikely that BookExpo Canada will be happening this year.

Last Friday, The Globe and Mail reported that Penguin Canada and HarperCollins Canada have joined Random House of Canada in deciding not to attend a 2009 show, and now other publishers are coming forward to say the same thing.

Yesterday, in conversations with Q&Q Omni, representatives from Scholastic Canada, H.B. Fenn and Company, and DK/Tourmaline said that they, too, will be sitting out the show. According to H.B. Fenn vice-president of marketing Tom Best, the decision was made based on a number of factors, but it mostly came down to wanting a better return on investment than they were getting. “I think we’re likely seeing the end of the show,” Best added.

Read the full piece at Quill & Quire online.

Fifth anniversary for women in publishing award

Booktrust is pleased to open nominations for the Kim Scott Walwyn Prize which is the only national prize to recognise the professional achievements of women in their publishing careers.

This year is the fifth anniversary of the £3,000 prize which was founded in honour of Kim Scott Walwyn, a Publishing Director at Oxford University Press who died in 2002 at the age of 45.
She was an outstanding editor and generous and inspirational manager whose career was widely recognised and celebrated during her life.

Previous winners of the prestigious prize include Annette Thomas, then Managing Director of Nature Publishing who later became CEO of Macmillan and Lynette Owen, Copyright Director of Pearson Education Ltd who was recently awarded an OBE.

Last year the prize was awarded to the literary agent Clare Alexander.

Nominations are open from 19 January 2009 to 9 March 2009.
For rules and guidelines of the award, and to nominate please go to http://www.booktrust.org.uk/

The prize committee is Professor Dame Gillian Beer DBE, FBA, FRSL (King Edward VII Professor Emeritus at the University of Cambridge); Catherine Clarke (Literary Agent, Felicity Bryan Agency); Denise Johnstone-Burt (Publisher at Walker Books); Kate Jury (student, Landscape Architecture), Hermione Lee CBE (Biographer, English Literature professor and President of Wolfson College Oxford), Fiona Maddocks (Chief Music Critic, The Observer); Sarah O’Brien (Legal worker); and Francine Stock (Novelist and Broadcaster).

The prize will be announced at a ceremony in May 2009.

SALAD BIBLE
Jacki Passmore – Penguin – NZ$25

With a perfect sense of timing for summer salads this latest title in Jacki Passmore’s most appealing series landed on my desk last week and already I am becoming more adventurous in my salad making. So far I have made the Italian tuna and white bean salad and the Curried rice salad with prawns and mango, both of which went down a treat, although I must say I felt a tad nervous about the mango from Australia which my greengrocer told me had been irradiated! I didn’t mention that to our guests.
In addition to loads of new salad options Passmore also provides recipes for staples such as Coleslaw, Nicoise and Waldorf.
Beautifully illustrated, another winner for the cookbook shelf.

The previous title in the series was SEAFOOD BIBLE mentioned on the blog on 28 November last, but other titles include CURRY BIBLE, MUFFIN BIBLE, BARBECUE BIBLE, VEGETARIAN BIBLE, and SLOW FOOD BIBLE.

This new title is number 15 in the series, all from Penguin at NZ$25.

From Books, New President Found Voice

Barack Obama (pic right) arrived in Bozeman, Mont., for a campaign rally in May 2008 carrying Fareed Zakaria’s “The Post-American World.”

By MICHIKO KAKUTANI writing in The New York Times, January 18, 2009

WASHINGTON — In college, as he was getting involved in protests against the apartheid government in South Africa, Barack Obama noticed, he has written, “that people had begun to listen to my opinions.” Words, the young Mr. Obama realized, had the power “to transform”: “with the right words everything could change -— South Africa, the lives of ghetto kids just a few miles away, my own tenuous place in the world.”

A Reading List That Shaped a President
Some of President-elect Barack Obama’s favored reading matter as mentioned in this article:
· The Bible
· “Parting the Waters,” Taylor Branch
· “Self-Reliance,” Ralph Waldo Emerson
· Gandhi’s autobiography
· “Team of Rivals,” Doris Kearns Goodwin
· “The Golden Notebook,” Doris Lessing
· Lincoln’s collected writings
· “Moby-Dick,” Herman Melville
· “Song of Solomon,” Toni Morrison
· Works of Reinhold Niebuhr
· “Gilead,” Marilynne Robinson
· Shakespeare’s tragedies

Much has been made of Mr. Obama’s eloquence — his ability to use words in his speeches to persuade and uplift and inspire. But his appreciation of the magic of language and his ardent love of reading have not only endowed him with a rare ability to communicate his ideas to millions of Americans while contextualizing complex ideas about race and religion, they have also shaped his sense of who he is and his apprehension of the world.

Mr. Obama’s first book, “Dreams From My Father” (which surely stands as the most evocative, lyrical and candid autobiography written by a future president), suggests that throughout his life he has turned to books as a way of acquiring insights and information from others — as a means of breaking out of the bubble of self-hood and, more recently, the bubble of power and fame. He recalls that he read James Baldwin, Ralph Ellison, Langston Hughes, Richard Wright and W. E. B. Du Bois when he was an adolescent in an effort to come to terms with his racial identity and that later, during an ascetic phase in college, he immersed himself in the works of thinkers like Nietzsche and St. Augustine in a spiritual-intellectual search to figure out what he truly believed.

Read the full piece at NYT online.

Bush's Post-Presidency to Include More Than a Library

By Dan Eggen
Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, January 18, 2009

Many former presidents rise to a second act. Jimmy Carter founded a human rights center and won the Nobel Peace Prize. Bill Clinton established a charity and traveled the world making speeches. Even the disgraced Richard Nixon opened a foreign-policy think tank shortly before his death.
Now it's George W. Bush's turn.
After handing over the White House to President-elect Barack Obama on Tuesday, Bush, 62, will return to Texas to begin his own post-presidency, including plans to build a library, museum and public-policy center in Dallas, that is far more ambitious than those of most other former commanders in chief.
In addition to the cost -- $300 million for the building and as much as $200 million for an endowment -- Bush's plans stand out as an effort to defend his tumultuous White House years and to continue the debate over his most controversial domestic and foreign policies. The George W. Bush Presidential Center will include a "Freedom Institute" focused on a broad portfolio of topics, including the expansion of democracy abroad and education reforms of the kind Bush implemented during his presidency, according to organizers.

Read the full report at The Washington Post online.

Rice to meet with publishers about memoirs

By HILLEL ITALIE, AP National Writer Hillel Italie, AP National Writer – Yahoo News

AP – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice waves while delivering a farewell speech, Friday, Jan. 16, 2009, …

NEW YORK – Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will be meeting with publishers later this month to discuss three book projects, including a memoir of her service in the Bush administration.
Rice on Friday confirmed to The Associated Press in Washington that she is pursuing book proposals in the near future.

Executives at two publishing houses and a senior aide to Rice say potential deals would also include a memoir about Rice's family and a multimedia project about international affairs for preteens and adolescents. All asked not to be identified, saying that talks were still in preliminary stages.

Full story at Yahoo News online.

The white witch from Chronicles of Narnia and Peter Pan's Captain Hook are the scariest ever fictional baddies, a poll has shown.

From The Daily Telegraph.

Evil characters from stories going back almost 200 years were named among the most frightening figures from children's literature in a survey of adult readers.
Most frightening of all was the white witch from the 1950 CS Lewis classic, menacingly played on the big screen by Tilda Swinton.

It topped a poll among grown ups by Penguin books to find the books and characters they could recall scaring the wits out of them when they were young.

Wicked witches, evil relatives and dastardly pirates dominated the top 10, released to celebrate the publication of Mr Toppit, a novel based on children's writer Arthur Hayman.
And while some modern villains did make the list, most came from stories handed down the generations which still have the ability to give youngsters nightmares.

In second place was Captain Hook from Peter Pan, who many believe was far scarier in the original 1904 book more comical versions in the Disney cartoon, other movies and pantos.
Other witches and wizards to make the list include the Grand High Witch from Roald Dahl's 1983 book The Witches and, the most recent of all, Voldermort from the Harry Potter books.

The list includes another pirate, Long John Silver, originally a ruthless and cold hearted character in Robert Louis Stevenson's 1883 adventure Treasue Island.

For the complete list and story link to The Telegraph online.

A talent for being loved: my father, John Mortimer

Being with him made you feel better about yourself, recalls Jeremy Mortimer, son of the writer and libertarian, who died on Friday.
from The Telegraph, 18 Jan 2009

Pic right - English stage and screen writer John Mortimer, creator of Rumpole of the Bailey, sits barefoot in the garden, circa 1985 Photo: Hulton Archive

My father was a man of many contradictions, which was one of the fascinating things about him. Growing up with him was never predictable.
He was the most stoical hypochondriac, for instance: when he had a cold, he would say that he felt like he was dying. Yet when he was actually dying, and suffering a great deal, he was extraordinarily brave.
Another example was his intolerant libertarianism. He believed passionately in people's freedom to do things, but he could also get incredibly irritated when they did things he didn't approve of.
He didn't understand the concept of patience. Attention, service, champagne – there was no time to waste. It was the same with his work. If he wasn't writing, often two or three things at once, he wasn't really living.

Read Jeremy Mortimer's full piece at The Telegraph online.

Jeremy Mortimer is an executive producer for BBC Radio and lives in north London with his wife and three children

OBITUARY - SIR JOHN MORTIMER

Obituary in The Guardian.

From The Times
January 16, 2009

Invaluable tips for would-be authors from the no-nonsense book How NOT to Write a Novel

To read this go to The Times online.

Have a look at this site. to read their January issue.

OBAMARAMA

Books about Obama reviewed in the Sunday Book Review, New York Times, 18 January 2008, The Inauguration issue.

Illustration left by Matt Dorfman

“A LONG TIME COMING”
The Inspiring, Combative 2008 Campaign and the Historic Election of Barack Obama
By Evan Thomas
Illustrated. 220 pp. PublicAffairs. $22.95

THE PLAN
Big Ideas for Change in America
By Rahm Emanuel and Bruce Reed
201 pp. PublicAffairs. Paper, $13.95

OBAMANOMICS
How Bottom-Up Economic Prosperity Will Replace Trickle-Down Economics
By John R. Talbott
218 pp. Seven Stories Press. Paper, $16.95

OBAMA’S CHALLENGE
America’s Economic Crisis and the Power of a Transformative Presidency
By Robert Kuttner
213 pp. Chelsea Green Publishing. Paper, $14.95

And go to Shelfari to see what Obama has been reading.

How Oscar Got Grouchy
By MICHIKO KAKUTANI writing in The New York Times, January 15, 2009

STREET GANG
The Complete History of Sesame Street
By Michael Davis
Illustrated. 379 pages. Viking. US$27.95.

Recent DVD collections of early “Sesame Street” episodes were called “Old School” and came with a peculiar warning: “These early ‘Sesame Street’ episodes are intended for grown-ups, and may not suit the needs of today’s preschool child.” That warning is a measure of how the series has changed in the nearly four decades since its debut in 1969. The old episodes not only have a handmade, anarchic charm that underscores the show’s debts to “Laugh-In,” the Marx Brothers and vaudeville, but they also are blessedly free of the uptight, sunnily upbeat, politically correct tone that has crept into more recent incarnations.

Back in the day, Oscar the Grouch was really grouchy (never mind that anger isn’t considered constructive), Cookie Monster really gobbled down cookies (never mind that empty calories aren’t healthy), and Big Bird’s invisible friend Snuffleupagus was really invisible to everyone but Big Bird (never mind suggestions that the giant yellow bird might have been hallucinating).

Read the full piece at NYT online.

Rumpole of the Bailey creator John Mortimer dies
Alison Flood writing in The Guardian, Friday 16 January 2009

John Mortimer. Photograph: Murdo Macleod/Guardian

Rumpole of the Bailey creator John Mortimer, 85, died this morning following a prolonged illness. His family said in a statement that they were by his side when he passed away.
Mortimer, who lived in what was formerly his father's house in the Chilterns, had been in a London hospital until a few days before Christmas before coming home, after which his condition deteriorated, said Tony Lacey, Mortimer's editor at Penguin.

The novelist, playwright and former barrister, who was born in London in 1923, was known and loved for the comic lawyer Rumpole, whose dedication to cheap wine and motto "never plead guilty", has been his most enduring creation.

"He would announce to me on the phone that he thought he ought to 'do a Rumpole' on asbos or weapons of mass destruction, or some similar topic about which he felt particularly strongly. Rumpole and John became increasingly fused," said Lacey.

Mortimer originally wrote the series for television, later spinning it off into a series of books and radio programmes.

Up until his death he was producing more than one book a year, with his confinement to a wheelchair not stopping him from touring a one-man show around the country.

For the full report link here to the Guardian online.

And for the New York Times report link here.

Footnote:

The Bookman reviewed Mortimer's latest, In Other Words, on the blog on 16 December 2008, while it was January '08 that I looked at his last Rumpole novel.

Storylines Children’s Literature Charitable Trust of New Zealand

Natural history writer Andrew Crowe wins Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal

Natural history writer and photographer Andrew Crowe is the first non-fiction writer to win the country’s top children’s literature prize, the Storylines Margaret Mahy Medal.

The award, given annually for a distinguished contribution to New Zealand children’s literature, will be presented in Christchurch on 28 March.

“Andrew Crowe’s contribution to young New Zealanders’ knowledge of their country’s natural history has been unique and of long standing,” says Storylines Trust chairman, Dr Libby Limbrick. “His many books, both in design and content, are consistently attractive, informative and accessible to young and old alike.”

Emigrating from Britain in 1972, Andrew Crowe published his first field guide to native edible plants in 1981, following an experience of getting lost in the bush and deciding that through books he could show that New Zealand was for him ‘a very special place’.

He has since produced more than 40 titles about native fauna and flora, mostly as series popular with schools, trampers, tourists and natural history enthusiasts. These include the “Which…?” series, the Wild Stories series, Patterns in Nature series (also published in Maori), the Mini Guide, Life-size Guide and Nature Flip Guide series.

Regularly appearing on shortlists, he is a multiple winner of both New Zealand Post and LIANZA children’s non-fiction book awards and was a finalist in the 1998 GP Book Design awards, with The Life-Size Guide to Native Trees. Two books have also featured in the Montana shortlists - Which New Zealand Bird? in 2002 and Which New Zealand Insect? in 2003.

Other texts, artwork and photographs have appeared in the School Journal, the Listener and New Zealand Geographic magazines. His most recent successes have been the Ashton Wylie Unpublished Manuscript Award in 2005 for The Dalai Lama Story – the Making of a World Leader, written with a foreword by the Dalai Lama to coincide with His Holiness' visit to New Zealand in June 2007, and the 2008 New Zealand Post Non-fiction Award for Which New Zealand Spider?

Andrew Crowe lives in Thames when he is not away travelling through New Zealand, countries like Tibet or Nepal, or going sailing.

Other winners of the Margaret Mahy Medal since 1991 have been novelists, among them Joy Cowley, Maurice Gee and William Taylor, picture book specialists such as Lynley Dodd and Gavin Bishop, and one publisher, Ann Mallinson.

Today’s USA TODAY features the Bestselling Books of 2008 and states that Stephenie “did what no else—not even JK Rowling—has done in the 15 years of the USA Today’s bestselling book list” and swept the top four slots in 2008:

#1 Twilight
#2 New Moon
#3 Breaking Dawn
#4 Eclipse

Additionally, since Thanksgiving, one in every five books sold was a Meyer book.

Click here to read the article and see the complete list.

Daughter accuses Asterix author of betraying his hero
Richard Lea writing in guardian.co.uk, Thursday 15 January 2009

Hero no more? Albert Uderzo poses with his characters in 2005 Photograph: Pierre-Philippe Marcou/AFP/Getty Images

The Romans may not have defeated Asterix, but his creator, Albert Uderzo, stands accused of surrendering to the indomitable Gaul's worst enemies: businessmen and financiers.

Writing in Le Monde yesterday, his daughter Sylvie suggests the 81-year-old illustrator has been pushed into denying "all the values" she was brought up with: "independence, fraternity, conviviality and resistance".
"This first victory of the invader over the indomitable Gauls is the only scenario no-one has ever dared to imagine," she continues. "It's as if characters Detritus or some other Accidentrix had come to the village, seen the chief, Albert, my father, and conquered him … As if they had managed to open the gates of the village to the empire!"

Uderzo, who created Asterix with the late Rene Goscinny in 1959, sold his stake in the company which publishes Asterix to Hachette last December, giving them a controlling stake of 60% in the company. The remaining 40% is owned by Sylvie.
The company announced last week that Uderzo had given authorisation for the bestselling series to continue after his death.

Read the full story at The Guardian online.

And more on Asterix living on from The Courier Mail.

SCOTTISH POETRY LIBRARY ADDS ANOTHER NZ POET

Robyn Marsack introduces Ian Wedde

I was re-reading Ian Wedde's Commonplace Odes (AUP ) at a cruising height of 35,000 feet the other week, on the interminable journey from Wellington to Glasgow. It was one way of carrying New Zealand with me: the ‘grave cone' of Taranaki; the smoke of summer barbecues; the blowy wind; the palms on the Picton foreshore; even the honeysuckle vine planted by the poet at the millennium, scenting his backyard as we talked on the last day of 2008.

Writing about this collection of odes, Wedde said that he had rediscovered through this form 'the grand themes in ordinary details: the emotional truth of the commonplace'. Themes and subjects bind these 28 poems together: the comfort and artistry of cooking is one of them:

A good cookbook is as good as a book of poems

Any day, because it can't be any more pretentious

Than the produce you savour with friends as night falls.

Link here for the full piece.

Love Stories
Selected and edited by Diana Secker Tesdell

The third title in the Everyman’s Library successful Pocket Classics series
Published: 14 February 2009, for Valentine’s Day
Priced: £10.99

Love Stories is a collection of short stories, inspired by romantic entanglement in its many forms. From first love to infatuation, obsession to adultery, these stories explore the complicated bonds between those who commit their lives to one another.

Love Stories brings together a diverse array of writers whose tales evoke a variety of moods; from the raw and erotic love of DH Lawrence’s The Horse Dealer’s Daughter and Colette’s Armande to the mischievous cynicism of Roald Dahl’s Mr. Botibol and Dorothy Parker’s Here We Are. Objects of passion include a glamorous silent-movie starlet in the haunting Dead Mabelle by Elizabeth Bowen and, in Margaret Atwood’s Bluebeard’s Egg, we meet a heart surgeon who spends his days penetrating the human heart whilst remaining emotionally opaque himself.

Including some of the greatest names in literature, from Maupassant, Nabokov and F. Scott Fitzgerald to contemporary greats Gabriel García Márquez, Italo Calvino, William Trevor and Ali Smith, this beautifully bound collection of 19 stories makes an enticing gift for all lovers.

Hosseini and Follett are global hits
14.01.09 Philip Jones writing in The Bookseller

Khaled Hosseini and Ken Follett are the most popular writers globally, according to analysis of the 2008 international fiction bestsellers published by book trade magazines including The Bookseller, Publishers Weekly and France's Livres Hebdo.

Hosseini, with two novels, The Kite Runner and A Thousand Splendid Suns, and Follett, with World without End, are the only two writers to have books in the top 10 fiction charts of seven of the nine countries where data was captured.

Behind this international duo were Swedish writer Stieg Larsson and the US thriller writer John Grisham, both of whom charted in five countries.
When the sales rankings of individual hits are factored in Larsson becomes the second biggest selling writer internationally, behind Hosseini.
Stephenie Meyer, Muriel Barbery, J K Rowling, Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and Henning Mankell made it into the top 10 fiction lists of four countries.

In total, 387 writers featured in the top 10 fiction charts of the nine countries—France, Germany, Italy, Netherlands, China, Spain, Sweden, UK and the US.
However, only 48 writers had top 10 hits in more than one territory, with fewer, just 21 authors, charting in three countries or more.

These writers, in addition to those already named, were Alan Bennett, Anna Gavalda, Christopher Paolini, David Baldacci, Elizabeth George, Jodi Picoult, Lauren Weisberger, Michael Connelly, Nicholas Sparks, Patricia Cornwall, Paulo Coelho and Valerio Manfredi.
Roberto Saviano, with Gomorra, should be added to this group, but his book is labelled as fiction in some countries and as non-fiction in others.

The international bestsellers lists are compiled by consultant Rüdiger Wischenbart, and are derived from publications including Buchreport, China Publishing Today, El Cultural, Boekblad, and Svensk Bokhandel.
GLOBAL HITS
List of authors and the number of countries they had top 10 hits in:

1 country (or more) 387 authors

2 countries 27 authors

3 countries 12 authors (Bennett, Gavalda, Paolini, Baldacci, George, Picoult, Weisberger, Connelly, Sparks, Cornwall, Coelho, Manfredi)

4 countries 5 authors (Meyer, Barbery, Zafón, Rowling, Mankell)

5 countries 2 authors (Larsson, Grisham)

7 countries 2 authors (Hosseini, Follett)

Global top 20 book bestsellers (fiction) 2008*

1 Khaled Hosseini

2 Stieg Larsson

3 Ken Follett

4 Stephenie Meyer

5 Muriel Barbery

6 Carlos Ruiz Zafón

7 Anna Gavalda

8 John Grisham

9 J K Rowling

10 Henning Mankell

11 Alan Bennett

12 Jodi Picoult

13 Christopher Paolini

14 David Baldacci

15 Nicholas Sparks

16 Elizabeth George

17 Lauren Weisberger

18 Michael Connelly

19 Patricia D. Cornwell

20 Paulo Coelho

* Ranked by chart positions on the monthly bestseller lists.

Lennon book: 'There were so many ways in which John influenced the late 20th century'
Philip Norman talks to Jon Dennis about his new biography John Lennon: The Life
Jon Dennis in guardian.co.uk,
Wednesday 14 January 2009

Philip Norman's book John Lennon: The Life is already being hailed by Beatles fans as the definitive book about the late Beatle. His 1981 book Shout! The True Story of the Beatles is regarded as the definitive book on the group.

In a wide-ranging interview, Norman discusses Lennon's life and loves, and explodes various myths about John.
He wasn't unloved as a child - in fact, various members of his extended family loved and supported him.
Lennon's relationships are explored - including the truth about his notorious holiday to Spain with manager Brian Epstein and allegations that an unprovoked attack by Lennon may have caused Stuart Sutcliffe's death from a brain haemorrhage.
* Warning: this interview contains strong language. Link here to The Guardian for the interview and mp3 download link.

And for reviews from The Observer, The Telegraph, and Word magazine.

And the book is warmly recommended by Dymock's Doris Mousdale.

The London Book Fair

The London Book Fair is the global marketplace for rights negotiation and the sale and distribution of content across print, audio, TV, film and digital channels.

Read more about The London Book Fair 2009

Unsworth's Booksellers

Unsworth's announce some good trade news, they have opened a new shop in St. Martin’s Court, London, following their sudden and unexpected departure from Foyles.

Established in 1986, they deal in old and rare books in the humanities, focusing on Early Printing, Greek & Latin Classics, and British history & topography.

Initially open Tuesday to Saturday, 10.30 - 6.00.

Unsworth's Booksellers 36 St. Martin's Court (off Charing Cross Road),

London WC2N 4AL

Tel: +44 (0)20 7436 9836

Email: books@unsworths.com

In the Red - Be part of something WILD!

In the Red, the literary magazine from the Centre of Writing at Liverpool John Moores University, was created seven years ago in order to showcase fresh writing talent alongside established writers.
Previous contributors include Dave Eggers, Roger McGough and Benjamin Zephaniah.
In the Red is currently accepting submissions from new writers to appear in our next issue, to be published in the Spring.

They want poetry up to 40 lines, prose up to 750 words and they are very keen on flash fiction.

And for the first time they’ve got a theme – WILD – so get thinking!

Two student prizes are also up for grabs, the Jane McNulty Prize for prose, and the Edmund Cusick Prize for poetry – ensure you include details of your university course to be eligible.

Email your submissions to inthered7@hotmail.co.uk
Deadline – 31st January 2009

How one book ignited a culture war

It's 20 years since Iran's religious leader Ayatollah Khomeini pronounced a death sentence on Salman Rushdie for 'insulting' Islam with his novel The Satanic Verses. The repercussions were profound - and are still being felt. Andrew Anthony traces the course of the affair, from book-burnings and firebombings to the dramatic impact it had on freedom of expression in a multicultural society .

Salman Rushdie (pic above right) wins the 1988 Whitbread Award. Photograph: Graham Turner/Guardian

Story by Andrew Anthony writing in The Observer, Sunday 11 January 2009 .
Read the full piece here.

OBAMARAMA

The wonderful Politics & Prose Bookstore and Coffeehouse in Washington DC has a line up of events to celebrate Obama's inauguration. Check it out on their website here, it is always worth a visit.

Romantic Novel of the Year judges fall for shortlist of six
Michelle Pauli writing in guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 13 January 2009

"She's not your average romantic heroine," admits Linda Gillard of the protagonist of her third novel, Star Gazing. In fact, she's about as far from the standard chick-lit heroine as she could be: Marianne Fraser is blind, middle-aged and widowed.
"I'm pleased to be able to give a different slant on the romantic heroine," says Gillard. "and the book confronts some difficult issues. While there is lots of comedy and lightness in the story, the fundamental thing is how to stop yourself becoming invisible because you're blind and bereaved and lonely. There is, of course, an unusual hero, too. The book is about different ways of seeing – the hero sees too much and the heroine doesn't see anything at all."

Star Gazing is one of six novels shortlisted this morning for the Romantic Novel of the Year award. The prize, now in its 49th year, aims to recognise excellence in romantic novels and enhance the status of the genre. Previous winners include Freya North, Rosie Thomas, Erica James, Katharine Davies, Jojo Moyes and Philippa Gregory.

Link here for the full list and story.

UK News -

Booktrust opens nominations for their new adult learning award

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/

Booktrust and the National Institute of Adult Continuing Education (NIACE) have teamed up to create a new award in celebration of adult learners.
The Booktrust: Power of Reading Award is an opportunity to celebrate the contribution that books and reading give to adult learners by helping to improve their own or their family's reading skills.

Booktrust has opened nominations for individuals or groups whose learning has in some way been touched by the power of reading.
The Booktrust: Power of Reading Award is part of Adult Learners’ Week, which will be held from 9 – 15 May 2009.

Adult Learners’ Week Awards are a wonderful way of celebrating the achievements of learners and, in doing so, encouraging others to get involved as well. Previous winners have come from a variety of backgrounds, but all have remarkable learning stories which inspire others to have a go.
Achievements that have been recognised through the Adult Learners’ Week Awards include the founding of adult literacy groups, exhibitions by visually impaired artists and those individuals who have overcome physical and mental disabilities to turn part time courses or studies into successful careers.

Nominations are open now through the NIACE website at www.alw.org.uk/nominate

**Please note the closing date is 21 January 2009.
For more information about the award, contact Louise Chadwick on louise.chadwick@booktrust.org.uk

SERESIN LANDFALL RESIDENCY

ANNOUNCEMENT & CALL FOR ENTRIES

Seresin Estate has highlighted its commitment to the arts and creative endeavour with the development of an annual writer's residency.Established with Otago University Press, the Seresin Landfall Residency will be available for six weeks each year in either Tuscany or Marlborough.

The Residency is the result of Michael Seresin's desire to support the work of Landfall magazine and the literary arts in New Zealand. “I wanted to provide a place where writers feel comfortable and can write. We are fortunate to have access to two beautiful properties, which I hope will provide some inspiration for a writer during their six week stay.”

Michael's father, Harry Seresin, was an early subscriber and avid reader of Landfall from the 1950s. The Seresin Landfall Residency honours his memory and the founder of Landfall, Charles Brasch, who helped to establish New Zealand's first literary residency, the Robert Burns Fellowship at the University of Otago. In his first Landfall editorial, Brasch commented that the magazine would be concerned “with questions of permanent interest, with ideas, with standards, with works of art which are often the creation of years, and may be the delight of generations.”

Wendy Harrex, Publisher at Otago University Press, says “we hope that this new partnership with Seresin Estate will give writers a quiet place where they are able to complete significant projects.” Michael Seresin says the Residency celebrates the link between the world of wine and creative endeavour. “Growing and making artisan wine is a creative process and I enjoy the association between the wine world and the endeavours of the creative world, be it written, visual, food or music”, says Michael.

The Residency is open to writers over twenty-one, working in any genre, who have been previously published. Submissions will consist of a covering letter from the writer outlining the project, which may be ongoing, along with a CV and up to twenty pages of sample work. The successful applicant can choose to spend the six-week Residency in the Marlborough Sounds, New Zealand, or Tuscany, Italy. The deadline for all entries is 31 January 2009. Results will be announced in the May issue of Landfall.

CONDITIONS OF ENTRY
This is a six-week residency (accommodation only) for a writer at either Seresin Estate Marlborough or Tuscany.

(a) The Residency will be open to authors over twenty-one, working in any genre, who have been previously published.

(b) Applications will be called for annually, with a deadline of 31 January. The Residency will be announced in the May issue of Landfall.

(c) Submissions will consist of a covering letter from the writer, outlining the project, which may be ongoing (e.g. a major work of non-fiction, completion of a novel or collection of poems or essays), along with a CV and up to twenty pages of sample work.

(c) The successful applicant should specify a preference for either Marlborough or Tuscany as the venue.

(d) Accommodation will be provided free of charge. The successful applicant must meet travel and living costs for the duration of the Residency.

(e) The Residency’s partners, Landfall/Otago University Press and Seresin Estate, must be formally acknowledged in any subsequent publications of work done during the Residency.

(f) The judging panel will consist of representatives of Otago University Press and Seresin Estate.

Applications should be posted to:
Seresin Landfall Residency,
Otago University Press,
PO Box 56,
Dunedin

For more information about applying please contact: landfall@otago.ac.nz
Richard Reeve
+64 3 479 5851

Fiction Reading Increases for Adults
By MOTOKO RICH writing in The New York Times, January 11, 2009

After years of bemoaning the decline of a literary culture in the United States, the National Endowment for the Arts says in a report that it now believes a quarter-century of precipitous decline in fiction reading has reversed.
The report, “Reading on the Rise: A New Chapter in American Literacy,” being released Monday, is based on data from “The Survey of Public Participation in the Arts” conducted by the United States Census Bureau in 2008. Among its chief findings is that for the first time since 1982, when the bureau began collecting such data, the proportion of adults 18 and older who said they had read at least one novel, short story, poem or play in the previous 12 months has risen.
The news comes as the publishing industry struggles with declining sales amid a generally difficult economy.
The proportion of adults reading some kind of so-called literary work — just over half — is still not as high as it was in 1982 or 1992, and the proportion of adults reading poetry and drama continued to decline. Nevertheless the proportion of overall literary reading increased among virtually all age groups, ethnic and demographic categories since 2002. It increased most dramatically among 18-to-24-year-olds, who had previously shown the most significant declines.

Read the full story at the NYT online.